Have you ever wondered what you should do or how you ought to behave when visiting a relative or friend who has experienced tragedy in his/her family?

How about putting your arms around that person a bear hug and saying: ‘I love you.’ When someone said that to me after one of the tragedies that befell my family, it was both heartfelt, caring as well as healing – whereas Time Heals or Most tragedies happen for a reason even if it was not meant to sound that way, had a hollow resonance to it. After losing a loved one, there was not a single reason that I could grasp that could make me believe that something so tragic could happen for a reason. I heard: ‘When do you think you’ll get over this loss?’ OR ‘You’re young; you’ll have another baby soon.’ OR ‘You’ll make a new life,’ failed to help me understand what they were getting at. After losing my adult son to schizophrenia as he was medication resistant and could no longer bear the voices

Although schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s are very different, while living through schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s, I had to learn that it was not what happened to me that counted, but, how I dealt with each one of them.

i learned that my anger at schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s were destroying me, so, i learned to do something about it. There were times when I felt as if my heart had turned to stone and it was a long time before I gained the ability to laugh, to feel even the tiniest emotion or to be open to loving again.

I had to learn that although pain is inevitable, extended suffering is optional. As there was no way that I could change the cards that my family had been dealt, I had to learn to change the way I played each hand.

All this took a long time, but eventually, I learned to take one day at a time. I gained the ability to appreciate a beautiful sunset or, a walk along the shore where I listened to the waves breaking. I even managed to enjoy the experience while wiggling my toes in the damp sand.

One day, I drew up a list of the terrible things that had occurred in my life as opposed to the positive aspects and was surprised to find more entries on the positive side. I am blessed with two wonderful, supportive daughters, five healthy grandchildren whom I adore as well as two helpful sons-in-law. I doubt whether I could have ‘chosen’ two nicer guys for my daughters to marry. How much better can life be than this?

Charles Swindoll said:

LIFE IS TEN PERCENT WHAT HAPPENS TO YOU AND NINETY PERCENT HOW YOU REACT TO IT.

How can seniors escape the world of high technology, is a question frequently asked by golden agers. Their complaint is that they seldom see anybody who is not connected to or talking on a smart phone and they need their peace. Swimming in a pool might be their last refuge from the wired world. The only way to escape social pressure might be when in a bubble of water. Today, our world is filled with the ringing and pinging of mobile telephones.

I know that my most creative thinking took place while I was swimming lengths in a pool. The bathing cap that we had to wear in those days effectively blocked out all the other sounds as I sliced through the refreshingly cool water.

Obsession with smart phones is not new but taking selfies is. For the seniors who do now know what a selfie is – it is a self portrait taken by oneself of oneself. This selfie phase may be a craze in more ways than one because some mental health professionals now claim that the people who photograph themselves obsessively, may be be suffering from a form of Body Dismorphic Disorder. They have a preoccupation with one or more personal flaws in their appearance and are excessively self conscious. As many as two thirds of patients with the above disorder are known to have taken multiple snapshots of themselves. It is not an addiction; rather a symptom of the above disorder that involves constantly checking their appearance. One expert said that people with B.D.D. can spend hours taking pictures of themselves that do not in fact show any flaws in their appearance.

Another expert stated that a preoccupation with selfiescould be an indicator of other mental problems in young people. Dr. Pamela Rutledge, Director of the Media Psychology Research Center in Boston, Massachusetts, said that this kind of photography triggers perceptions of self-indulgence or self-seeking social dependence that raises the damned-if-you-do and damned-if-you-don’t spectre of either narcissism or very low self esteem